Touchscreen interfaces are becoming increasingly popular as a means for providing a user with graphical and textual information and accepting input via direct contact on the touchscreen from the user's finger. Most smartphones and many personal computers utilize touchscreen technology to provide efficient interaction with users. A touchscreen interface essentially provides a program designer a blank canvas with which to display any desired graphical and textual depiction and to accept input directly on that depiction at any desired input location. The displayed graphics and text on a touchscreen interface may be dynamically altered at any desired time along with the number, type, and positioning of input locations through which input is accepted from the user via finger contact with the touchscreen.
This versatility provided by touchscreen technology presents training opportunities in which various control panels and instruments may be simulated on an electronic device having a touchscreen. For example, aircraft cockpit instrumentation may be simulated on a tablet computer or flat screen panel utilizing a touchscreen interface. Moreover, cockpits in actual aircraft may additionally trend towards the use of flat screen panels having virtual avionics displayed on a touchscreen. In a training environment, various flight operations may be simulated for a pilot or crewmember on the virtual instruments displayed on the touchscreen. These types of simulations may be particularly realistic when the instrument being simulated utilizes buttons for receiving input. A virtual button may be displayed at a proper location on the virtual instrument where it would be located on the corresponding physical instrument. A user, such as a pilot or crewmember, may touch the touchscreen interface at the location in which the virtual button is displayed. This contact of the user's finger with the touchscreen interface at the location of the virtual button may be interpreted as a physical press of the corresponding button.
However, when a virtual instrument simulates an instrument that utilizes knobs that are physically turned by a pilot or crewmember, the two-dimensional simulation of the virtual knobs on the touchscreen interface may not be physically turned in the manner in which an actual three-dimensional knob is turned. According to a conventional method for simulating input to a virtual knob, the user selects the virtual knob displayed on the two-dimensional touchscreen interface. In response to the selection of the virtual knob, a slider may pop up in the center of the touchscreen interface. The user may then slide a finger left or right along the slider to adjust the parameter corresponding to the virtual knob in a similar manner as if the knob were being turned clockwise or counterclockwise.
There are limitations with this type of interaction with a virtual knob. First, the input is not realistic. Sliding a finger linearly along a two-dimensional touchscreen surface is not similar to the actual physical turning of a three-dimensional knob. Additionally, the location in which the slider is displayed may not be the same location as the virtual knob. As a result, the user may make one action at a first location during selection of the control, and then physically move his or her finger to the second location of the slider to adjust the control. This movement is not realistic, may create input errors due to relocating the user's finger, and may undesirably divert the user's attention from performing a primary action as he or she looks down at the touchscreen interface to locate the slider after selecting the virtual knob.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the disclosure made herein is presented.